BI OF Wile WEEDS ces 0 roxourV V hen you opened this box, you opened a whole new world: a world filled with heroes and exciting adventures, a world infested by villains and great dangers, a world where anything can happen. Welcome to the world of DC Heroes. DC Heroes is a role playing game. But even if you've played role playing games before, you'll find DC Heroes a little bit different from the rest. For those who have never played role playing games, please read the next two pages. Experienced role players may skip these pages and start on page 4 at the: Introduction.WHAT IS A ROLE PLAYING GAME? A role playing game lets you play a role, like an actor does on a stage. Each person may play the role of one hero. In DC Heroes, you, the Player, can take on the character of anyone in the world of DC, including Batman, Super- man, Green Arrow, or even a character you make up. Each hero has definite powers and skills, each has a motivation for acting as a hero, and each has special weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and limitations. ‘The hero you chose to play, called the character, is involved in creating an interesting story with the other players of the game. This creation is not hard. In fact, it’s lots of fun. Everyone can learn role playing games. They are straightforward, logical, and deal with understandable ideas. Most people learn through ex- perience. Start slowly, taking as much time as you need, then stop when it becomes confusing, The more you play DC Heroes, the more you will understand why certain rules exist, and how to use them. The rules in DC Heroes allow you to make up your own stories about your favorite heroes. Instead of just reading a comic book feat- 2 uring the Teen Titans, you will play the role of one of the young heroes. You decide which actions the hero will take, act as the char- acter would when meeting other characters, and behave as if you were the hero. This hero will then participate in an adventure which is coordinated by another person called the Gamemaster. One person must be chosen as the Gamemaster. This person should be familiar with the rules of DC Heroes. He is like the writer ofa DC comic book, unfolding the story and playing all of the other people in the world. The Game- master also has the important task of playing the roles of all of the non-hero characters in the ad- ventures. These characters are called Non-Player Characters. The term Non-Player Characters is abbreviated as NPCs. For example, in the sample story, he would play the Riddler, the Riddler’s henchman, the pro- fessor at the Egyptian exhibit, and everyone else that Batman might meet in the story. ‘The Gamemaster writes down the basic framework of the story, drawing out plans for the various locations, assigning powers and skills to the villains, and creating the special plot twists for each story (like a riddle from the Riddler), The Gamemaster must have a good grasp of the rules of the game, since he is the one who conducts play and acts as a refe- ree. One whole book in DC Heroes is devoted to the Gamemaster, and it gives him helpful hints on how to play. ‘When your group sits down with the Gamemaster to play, everyone has his assigned role(s). As Play. ers, your characters are all he- roes, The Gamemaster runs every- thing else. The Gamemaster will then present the beginning of the story tothe assembled group, but not as adrysummary of the facts. He will try to encourage you to imagine yourself in the DG world, by des- cribing the general picture, set- ting, people, and other important information about the situation the heroes find themselves in. Like the beginning of acomic book, the beginning of a role playing game can start slowly, then build to- ward an exciting climax. As a Player, you must identify with your chosen hero character, and place him in that picture. Askyourself questions about the en vironment and the character. How would Batman act in this place? What would he say or try to do? It is all right to ask the Gamemaster questions to help you understand what is going on. Four environments should al- ways be kept in mind while you are role playing: 1. The immediate environment, includes those things that are closest to your character: his cos- tume, the chair he’s sitting in, the gadgets and equipment included with his costume, etc. 2. The general environments the area in which the chair is placed:a room in the character's headquar- ters, or a shack, with all of its fea- tures (doors, windows, ete.) de- tailed by the Gamemaster. 8. The larger environment is the area beyond: the space outside the windows and doors, the city in which the headquarters is locat- ed, the swamp next to the shack. ‘The larger environment includes the trees, sky, birds, ete. 4, The world environment is usu- ally the world of DC Heroes, but it could be a planet trillions of miles from Earth, the heart of a super: nova, a cave one hundred miles beneath the surface of a planet, or anywhere the Gamemaster takes your character. Once the environment (the WHERE ) and the hero and other people (the WHO) have been estab- lished, the first problem can be presented by the Gamemaster. A problem can be anything that forces you and the other Players to become involved with the story. It could be a clue your characters must solve, a bank robbery they must foil, or even a full scale at tack on their headquarters! Atthis point you and the others are no longer passive observers, You must do something. Your de- cisions affect the outeome of the story, so that the story isn’t just being told by one person, but. be- ing experienced and changed by the whole group. When you act, the Gamemaster will ask for information about your characters. The numbers on each character card are used to rate that character's abilities and attributes. Sometimes the Gamemaster will ask you to throw dice. This is the method by which Players deter- mine how successful their charac- ter will be in certain actions. The process is called an Action Check. Once the dice are rolled, the Game- master will look at his tables and tell you the result of your actions. After the first problem, you and the other Players take control of the game. Your characters must follow up on clues and fight the bad guys to find more clues which will keep the story moving. Sometimes, youllhit a dead end and the Gamemaster must be prepared to start again by pre- senting a new problem which lets the action move forward. And so it goes throughout the adventure, the Players and the Gamemaster working together to create a total- ly unique story, like those found in DC comic books. The rules presented here and in the other books give you a frame work on which to build the world of DC Heroes. They allow you to create and experience new ad- ventures; and to find out just how , strong, or powerful your fa- vorite character is, Role playing is a lot of fun. It helps develop the imagination, and lets people understand the im- portance of teamwork and hones- ty. But most of all, role playing lets you live the lives of your favorite heroes and share in their exciting adventures! 3INTRODUCTION ‘The rules to DC Heroes are like a language. It is not necessary to read and memorize every word of the rules before playing the game, That would be like learning to read by memorizing a dictionary. Playing the gameis the fun part, so you should start with the im: portant rules and terms in this introduction and then start play- ing. You can add more of the rules as you and your friends feel like increasing the variety of the play. Like a language, the rules of DC Heroes will teach everyone com- mon words and phrases that mean very specific things in the game. These terms will give each Player a good idea what his hero can do, as well as the abilities of the other Players’ heroes. Using the game terms will make it easy to understand how tough the villain is and what it takes to “leap over a tall buildingin asingle bound.” There are seven different ideas that you need to understand in DC Heroes. Some of these ideas are easy; some are a little harder. ‘Take your time. Everything here is explained in many different ways so if you don't understand it here in the introduction, you might get, a better feel for it in the solo ad- venture or the Example of Play (presented in the Players’ Manual), Right now just concentrate on the seven ideas found in this pamphlet. These are: Attribute Points Attributes How to Use the Dice ‘The Action and Result Tables Powers and Skills Hero Points Automatic Actions Once you have read through these sections, you will be ready to play the solo adventure in the Module Book. After you have mastered the solo adventure, you should be able to play DC Heroes with some- ‘one who understands all of the rules. After you've played a few times, read the Players’ Manual to add variety to the game. This is the basic form of measure ment in DC Heroes. Everything, including time, distance, and vol- umeis measured in Attribute Points. Attribute Point is abbreviated AP. You should remember this abbre- viation, We use it a lot. Since Attribute Points measure everything in DC Heroes, it is easy to transfer these Points from one form of measurement to another. For instance, to find how much a character can lift, find his Attribute Points for Strength. This is the number of Attribute Points of weight he can lift without strain, Attribute Points (APs) are also used to measure how effective a character action is, So, in combat, APs are used to find how much damage a character inflicts or sustains. Inarace, APs are used to find out how fast a character runs. And so on. APs can even measure know: ledge: 8 APs equals the informa: tion in a magazine, 9 APs equals the information contained in a book, 11 APs is the information in a two-volume dictionary, 13 APs 4 equals the collected works of a prolific author, and 14 APs is the information in a ten-volume en cyclopedia. ‘These amounts of damage, speed, or information are related to real world units like pounds, feet, and seconds. There is a base value for each type of measurement called Effect Units. These are listed below: Measurement Effect Units Weight 50 pounds Distance 10 feet ‘Time 4 seconds Volume Vxixl ‘These measures are equal to 0 APs, In DC Heroes, 0 has a measurable value, Each additional AP of measure- mentis worth about twice as much as the AP before it. Therefore, a DC Hero with a Strength of 6 is twice as strong as a DC Hero with a Strength of 5. he Gamemaster (GM) has a table in his book that will tell him how to quickly convert APs into their real world equivalent and real world measures into APs, But this is not important for the Play- ers. It is enough to know how many APs something has, because all measurements are in APs; not pounds, inches, or cubie feet. Weight, for instance, goes like this: APs Real World Weight 50 Ibs. 100 Ibs. 200 Ibs. 400 Ibs. 800 Ibs. 1,500 Ibs. 3,000 Ibs. ook Distance also works on this: so that: APs Real World Distance 10 feet 20 feet 40 feet 80 feet 160 feet 320 feet (100yas—approx.) 640 feet